Byron scores second Truck win in Texas

The Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota Truck crossed the line with a 2.1sec lead, but that doesn’t reflect how hard he worked for it, fighting with Matt Crafton’s ThorSport Toyota, Johnny Sauter in the #21 GMS Chevrolet and the superbly driven Curb Records Toyota of another rookie and Crafton's teammate, Rico Abreu.

“We didn’t have it that good until the last run, but Rudy (Fugle, crew chief) fixed me up that last run. I can’t thank everyone enough – Kyle (Busch, team owner), Samantha (Busch), KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports), the fans – it was a great crowd tonight," said Byron.

The dominant force throughout the race was Crafton. He led at the start in the Menards Toyota, dropped to the back with a puncture, then sliced through the field from 25^th to retake the lead within just 20 laps! He then pulled away until the final yellow.

On the restart, he fought hard with Byron, and while it looked like he had won the war as Byron tumbled down to fourth, in fact Crafton had only won the battle. Working his tires hard for five straight laps of side-by-side action with the eventual winner would ultimately prove to have taken too much life from Crafton’s tires, and in the closing stages he lost drive off the corners despite leading 133 of the 167 laps.

That allowed Sauter to pull within range again, but Sauter was overwhelmed by the battling Byron and Abreu. Abreu had been preferring the high line all night, taking the strain off his tires by working the larger circumference of the track, which meant on long runs his Goodyears had lasted better than those of his rivals.

He had closed right behind Byron, but the 18-year-old teenager took the same line with two laps to go and robbed Abreu of downforce, sending him gently into the wall. Although Abreu kept his foot in it, there was major tire rub on his right-front, and he drove it in too deep on the closing lap, making contact with the wall. He would tumble to 9^th. That’s still the best result of Abreu's nascent Truck career, but the result was so much less than it should have been.

Thus Crafton took second ahead of Sauter. Ben Kennedy took fourth in the Jacob Chevrolet, ahead of Tyler Reddick who drove a great race in the Cooper Standard Ford to recover from going one lap down following a spin.

Timothy Peters, who has still yet to score his first win of the 2016 season was sixth in the Red Horse Racing Toyota ahead of John Hunter Nemechek followed by series returnee German Quiroga (who started from the front row), Abreu, and Daniel Hemric who led 19 laps.

Hemric was another Ford driver who, like Reddick had looked a potential winner until suffering a slow puncture to his right-rear on lap 91 of the 167. He recovered but ended up taking an extended pitstop on lap 118 during the final yellow caused by John Wes Townley’s spin in the #05 Chevrolet. In the circumstances, recovering to 10^th was a fine achievement.